Crown Oil Estates acquires £9.8m Warth Industrial Estate

The fuel services company’s North West empire continues to grow with the purchase of the 34-acre Radcliffe estate from St Modwen – a deal that was done in collaboration with strategic asset management advisors SCP Investments and Ignite.

Warth Industrial Estate boasts 280,000 sq ft of industrial space with a secured 14-acre site, as well as a 20-acre plot across the railroad tracks. Currently, the site produces a headline annual rent of around £527,400, according to a brochure from DTRE.

Crown Oil Estates will now conduct a £5m refurbishment and redevelopment programme on the largely vacant industrial park. When the programme is complete, there will be a variety of units, ranging from 2,500 sq ft to more than 50,000 sq ft.

Crown Oil managing director Matthew Greensmith said: “We are delighted to add a significant asset to our growing portfolio where we continue to invest over the long term to create business space to suit current occupiers’ needs in a range of sizes and types of buildings throughout the North West.”

A sale price for the property was not disclosed, although the DTRE brochure for the land includes a guide price of £9.8m. That represents a capital value of £35/sq ft.

Crown has bought more than 600,000 sq ft of industrial property over the past few years, including Heysham Business Park and Barton Hill Industrial Estate.

Unlike those two, Warth Industrial Estate is in Crown Oil’s backyard. The company is based at Heap Bridge in Bury.

Greensmith shared encouraging statistics from the company’s property activities to date.

“Our ongoing regeneration programme has already enabled the creation of over 100 jobs, removal of significant ground contamination and has brought over 150,000 sq ft of previously dilapidated space back into use to the benefit of the North West economy,” he said.

Edwards and BBS Law assisted Crown Oil on the deal for Warth Industrial Estate. Nolan Redshaw and DTRE are the letting agents for Warth.